1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an organic electroluminescence (EL) device manufacturing method. In addition, the present invention relates to an organic EL device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Up to now, an organic EL device can perform self-light emission to obtain a high luminance screen. Therefore, the organic EL device has been widely put into practical use as a display or an illuminating device, which is used for, for example, a mobile device which is small in thickness and light in weight.
The organic EL device has such a fundamental structure that an organic light-emitting layer is provided between an anode and a cathode. In order to emit light from the organic EL device having such the structure, it is necessary for a first terminal portion and a second terminal portion to extend from the anode and the cathode to the outside of a light-emitting region to establish a connection with a drive power source, thereby supplying a current to an organic EL layer of the light-emitting region.
An example of the method of manufacturing the organic EL device described above involves stacking an anode, an organic layer, and a cathode on a substrate in this order using a mask having a predetermined pattern formed thereon. When the mask is used, alignment between the substrate and the mask is performed before the formation of the respective layers. When a positional displacement of the mask occurs, a high-quality organic EL device cannot be manufactured. Therefore, the alignment of the mask is slowly and carefully performed.
Another example of the method of manufacturing the organic EL device involves stacking a first electrode, an organic EL layer, and a second electrode on a transparent substrate in this order, providing a damage prevention film on the second electrode, and forming a resist pattern on the damage prevention film to perform etching, thereby obtaining the organic EL device having a light-emitting region, which is disclosed in JP 2000-040594 A.
However, in the case of the method of forming every layer composing the organic EL device using the mask to manufacture the organic EL device, for example, when the organic layer is a multilayer, it is necessary to perform the alignment between the mask and the substrate plural times. Therefore, manufacturing the organic EL device takes time.
JP 2000-040594 A does not disclose a method of forming the first terminal portion, the second terminal portion, and the like. In JP 2000-040594 A, etching using a resist as the mask is performed to form a pattern of the light-emitting region. It is likely to damage the organic EL layer by a wet process performed for forming the pattern of the resist.